In wake of shooting, Oakland First Fridays canceled for...

1of6Former Oakland Chief of Police, Howard Jordan walks through the crowd during the First Friday event, Friday March 1, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. Event organizers canceled the monthly street festival scheduled for Friday Nov. 2 following a shooting after the October event.Photo: Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle

3of6First Friday celebrates the city's art community and has also become a street party attracting up to 30,000 people monthly.Photo: Visit Oakland

4of6First Friday celebrates the city's art community and has also become a street party attracting up to 30,000 people monthly.

5of6First Friday celebrates the city's art community and has also become a street party attracting up to 30,000 people monthly.

6of6First Friday celebrates the city's art community and has also become a street party attracting up to 30,000 people monthly.

Organizers of Oakland’s popular First Fridays festival canceled the event for November after a shootout that injured six people marred this month’s gathering hours after it ended.

Organizers announced the cancellation on Thursday, saying they tentatively plan to return in December after conducting a “top-to-bottom” review of safety policies and procedures.

November’s event would have taken place four days before election day. Organizers said it didn’t have anything to do with the cancellation, and they would have probably used the event to encourage voter participation.

In a letter posted on the event’s website Thursday evening, organizers said while the shooting occurred three hours after First Fridays shut down and several blocks away, “safety is something we take very, very seriously.”

Officers responded to gunfire just after midnight on Oct. 6, in the area of William Street and Telegraph Avenue, police said at the time.

Two men were in a dispute when the argument escalated, police said, prompting both to fire guns at each another. None of the injuries were fatal. The two suspects were arrested after being treated at a hospital, and police later said four others had been shot.

Since the shooting, Oakland First Fridays organizers have been meeting with city officials and local businesses to discuss how to proceed, said First Fridays spokesman Mike Woolson.

“Businesses are taking a hit,” Woolson said of the cancellation. “But they’re also very supportive of keeping it safe.”

It’s the first time in recent memory that the festival has been called off for any reason other than weather, Woolson said.

In a statement, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s spokesman Justin Berton said Schaaf supported the organizer’s decision to take the month off.

“First Friday has become an Oakland institution that celebrates our city’s artistic community,” he said. “We look forward to the discussion to improve the event and attend a First Friday in the near future.”

What began as a spontaneous grassroots event in 2005 has evolved into a monthly street party, closing five blocks between Grand Avenue and 27th street on Telegraph and drawing upward of 30,000 people.

Most of First Fridays’ crime woes stem not from the event itself but the crowds that spill over into the after-hours.

The organizers’ letter listed several public safety proposals for the future, including increased enforcement of an open-containers ban, and encouraging crowds to fan out into other areas of the city. They’re shopping for partnerships with districts including Jack London Square and Temescal, “to bring home the fact that First Fridays is a city-wide event with galleries, performance, events and activities well beyond our five blocks of Telegraph.”

The city will be hosting a town hall on the matter in the near future, but officials have yet to announce a date or venue.

Megan Cassidy is a crime reporter with The Chronicle, also covering cops, criminal justice issues and mayhem. Previously, Cassidy worked for the Arizona Republic covering Phoenix police, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and desert-area crime and mayhem. She is a two-time graduate of the University of Missouri, and has additionally worked at the Casper Star-Tribune, National Geographic and an online publication in Buenos Aires. Cassidy can be reached on twitter at @meganrcassidy, and will talk about true crime as long as you’ll let her.